"But I can tell you what treatment like that does to one. It gives a man a new view of human life, of what it is he belongs to. A sense of pride in our common accomplishment, of gratitude for the pleasure he receives, of a natural desire to contribute something. I took this new ethics—it satisfied me, it's reasonable, it's necessary. We make it our basic study now, in all the schools. You must have noticed that?"
Yes, I had noticed it, as I looked back. "But they don't call it that," I said.
"No, they don't call it anything to the children. It is just life, the rules of decent behavior."
We sat silent awhile after this. Things were clearing up a little in my mind.
"A sort of crystallization of chaotic progressive thought into clear diamonds of usable truth—is that about what happened?" I said.
"That's exactly it."
"And a general refutation and clearing out of—of."
"Of a lot of things we deeply believed—that were not so! That is what was the matter with us, John. Our minds were full of what Mrs. Eddy christened error. I wish I could make you feel what a sunrise it was to the world when we left off believing lies and learned the facts."
"Can you, in a few words, outline a little of your new 'Ethics' to the lay mind?"
"Easily. It is all 'lay' enough. We don't make a separate profession of religion, or a separate science of ethics. Ethics is social hygiene—it teaches how humanity must live in order to be well and strong. We show the child the patent facts of social relation, how all our daily life, our accumulated wealth and beauty and continuing power, rests on common action, on what people do together. Everything about him teaches that. Then we show him the reasons why such and such actions are wrong, what the results are; how to avoid wrong lines of action and adopt right ones. It's no more difficult than teaching any other game, and far more interesting."